Sertac Bayhan received his MS and PhD degrees in Electrical Engineering from Gazi University, Ankara, Turkey, in 2008 and 2012, respectively. His undergraduate studies had also taken place at the same university and he graduated as valedictorian. In 2008, he joined the Electronics and Automation Department, Gazi University, as a Lecturer, where he was promoted to Associate Professor in 2017. From 2014 to 2018, he worked at Texas A&M University at Qatar as Associate Research Scientist. Dr. Bayhan is currently working in Qatar Environment and Energy Research Institute (QEERI) as a Research Director and he is a faculty member with the rank of Professor in Sustainable Division of College of Science and Engineering at Hamad Bin Khalifa University. His research encompasses power electronics and their applications in next-generation power and energy systems, including renewable energy integration, electrified transportation, and microgrid.

Dr. Bayhan is the recipient of many prestigious international awards, such as the Research Fellow Excellence Award in recognition of his research achievements and exceptional contributions to the Texas A&M University at Qatar in 2018, the Best Paper Presentation Recognition at the 41st and 42nd Annual Conference of the IEEE Industrial Electronics Society in 2015 and 2016, Research Excellence Travel Awards in 2014 and 2015 (Texas A&M University at Qatar), and Researcher Support Awards from the Scientific and Technological Research Council of Turkey (TUBITAK). He has acquired $13M in research funding and published more than 170 papers in mostly prestigious IEEE journals and conferences. He is also the coauthor of two books and five book chapters.

Dr. Bayhan has been an active senior member of IEEE. Because of the visibility of his research, he has been recently elected as Chair of IES Power Electronics Technical Committee. He currently serves as Associate Editor for IEEE transactions on Industrial Electronics, IEEE Journal of Emerging and Selected Topics in Industrial Electronics, IEEE Open Journal of the Industrial Electronics Society, and IEEE Industrial Electronics Technology News, and Guest Editor for the IEEE transactions on Industrial Informatics.

Dr. Yongfeng Tong obtained his PhD diploma at the University of Paris-Sud, France. Before joining the Core Lab of QEERI as a Scientist in September 2019, he was a Postdoc in the Laboratoire Materiaux et Phénomènes Quantiques, University of Paris Diderot, France. He has also been working in Synchrotron SOLEIL for four years and performing the synchrotron-based high resolution surface science techniques on the beamline TEMPO, including X-ray Photoelectron Spectroscopy (XPS), Ultraviolet Photoelectron Spectroscopy(UPS), Angular-Resolved Photoemission Spectroscopy(ARPES), and Near Edge X-ray Absorption Fine Structure (NEXAFS). Currently, he is under the supervision of the core lab director Dr. Said Mansour and takes charge of the XPS/UPS, TOF-SIMS characterization in the core lab QEERI. His current research interest includes organic molecules for Rectenna electronics, thiol/dithiol self-assembled monolayers and 2D novel systems. 
 

Dr. Ka Lok Yip holds an interdisciplinary PhD (summa cum laude) in International Law and International Relations from the Graduate Institute of International and Development Studies, Geneva. She also has a Bachelor of Civil Law (distinction) from the University of Oxford and a Bachelor of Laws (first class honors) from King’s College London. Ka Lok focuses her research on peace and conflict. She draws on a wide range of disciplines including international law, international relations, philosophy, psychology, and sociology to study the causes of armed conflicts and strategies for their management, resolution, and prevention. She has published extensively on issues related to peace and conflict and her recent monograph ‘The Use of Force against Individuals in War under International Law – a Social Ontological Approach’ won her the Francis Lieber Book Prize 2023. Ka Lok is also admitted to the practice of law in England and Wales and Hong Kong.

Dr. Dunia Bachour is a Senior Scientist at the Qatar Environment & Energy Research Institute (QEERI), part of Hamad Bin Khalifa University in Doha, Qatar. She currently coordinates the Solar Resource Assessment Project under the Energy Management Program in the Energy Center. She received her doctoral degree in Physics from the Autonomous University of Barcelona, Spain. Her research in QEERI focuses on solar resource measurements, assessment and analysis. Prior to joining QEERI, she worked as a Scientific Collaborator in several university hospitals in Switzerland and France with the responsibilities of a radiation physicist in a radiooncology department including the commissioning of equipment for radiation therapy, radiation treatment planning and techniques, quality control, radiation measurements and radiation protection.

Ahmed Sodiq did his Bachelor of Science degree in Chemical Engineering at Obafemi Awolowo University in Nigeria in 2012 with a research focus on Carbon Capture, Storage and Utilization. He completed his master’s degree in Chemical Engineering at Masdar Institute of Science and Engineering in the United Arab Emirates in 2015 with a research focus on Carbon Capture and Storage. He then joined Hamad Bin Khalifa University in 2015 where he completed his PhD program in Sustainable Energy in 2020 with a research focus on Flow Batteries for Large Scale Electrical Energy Storage Applications. Ahmed joined Qatar Environment and Energy Research Institute (QEERI) as a Research Associate in 2019 under Energy Efficiency program and his research focused on Cooling Efficiency in Buildings, especially in addressing overcooling in commercial buildings in Qatar. He is currently a postdoctoral researcher at QEERI with a research focus on Direct Air Capture of CO2 using the HVAC systems, especially the air conditioning systems. Ahmed has published 13 peer-reviewed articles in reputable international journals, one book chapter, a number of conference proceedings and six patent applications in different fields, such as carbon capture, sustainable energy, electrochemistry and HVAC systems. 

Alaa Alkhateeb graduated from Qatar University in 2016 with a Bachelor Degree in Science, and majored in Chemistry and minor Biology. Her favorite fields are Physical Chemistry and Organic Chemistry. During University, she received an academic reward on her Graduation project which was in inorganic field for the following project; “synthesis and characterization of thiosemicarbazones metal complexes as a potential anti-cancer agents”. She joined QEERI in July 2018 as a Lab Technician, and worked with an energy storage group in a NPRP project which dealt with cathodes for sodium-ion batteries. Currently, she is working in the Energy Center with a Catalyst and Process Technology group.

Dr. El Tayeb Bentria is a Scientist within the Materials Unit, leading the Biomimicry‑AI research activities at the Qatar Environment and Energy Research Institute (QEERI). His work applies nature‑inspired principles and artificial intelligence to accelerate materials discovery, prototyping, and design. He has a continued interest in multiscale corrosion modeling for the oil & gas industry. He received his Ph.D. in Physical Chemistry of Materials from the University of Laghouat, Algeria, where he investigated the segregation effects of impurities in nickel‑based superalloys. Dr. Bentria joined QEERI at the end of 2015 as a Research Assistant and has since contributed to several NPRP‑funded projects as a Postdoctoral Researcher. His previous research includes fundamental studies of metal dusting and carbonyl corrosion, and the prediction of energy materials’ properties using density functional theory.

Dr. Kivambe is a Scientist at Qatar Environment & Energy Research Institute (QEERI), where he works on performance and reliability of Photovoltaic (PV) systems. He has over 15 years’ research experience in PV value chain, from crystalline silicon materials to solar cells and modules, including indoor and outdoor testing. He received his M.Sc. in Condensed Matter physics and Biophysics in 2008, and his Ph.D. in Materials Science and Engineering in 2012 from the Norwegian University of Science and Technology (NTNU), in Norway. Before joining QEERI, Dr. Kivambe worked as a postdoctoral associate at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), Photovoltaic Research Laboratory, focusing on performance improvement of low-cost silicon for solar cell applications.

Dr. Manal Alsalama is a Research Associate at the Qatar Environment and Energy Research Institute (QEERI). Manal holds a Bachelor’s degree in Physics from King Saud University in Saudi Arabia and a Master’s degree in materials science and technology from Qatar University. She obtained her Ph.D. in sustainable energy from Hamad Bin Khalifa University. Her research focuses on the development of nano-bulk and nanocomposites thermoelectric materials for energy conversion applications. She has experience in nanomaterial synthesis and characterization.
 

Dr. Usaama al-Azami is an Assistant Professor of Islamic Studies at the College of Islamic Studies. He earned his BA in Arabic and Islamic Studies at the University of Oxford, his ʿālimiyya at the Al-Salam Institute, and his MA and PhD in Near Eastern Studies at Princeton University.

His interests lie in Islamic intellectual history, with a particular focus on diachronic transformations in Islamic political thought. His first book, Islam and the Arab Revolutions (Oxford University Press, 2022), examines the way in which influential Islamic scholars responded to the Arab uprisings of 2011 through 2013. He is currently working on a monograph project that explores the question of takfir or excommunication and its diachronic developments from early Islam to modernity.

Dr. Al-Azami's PhD thesis, the chapters of which he is preparing for publication, is entitled "Modern Islamic Political Thought: Islamism in the Arab World from the Late Twentieth to the Early Twenty-first Centuries." In it, he explores how Arab ulama of a mainstream "Islamist" orientation have engaged Western political concepts such as democracy, secularism, and the nation-state, selectively adapting and assimilating aspects of these ideas into their understandings of Islam. Dr. Al-Azami's broader interests extend to a range of disciplines from the Islamic scholarly tradition from the earliest period of Islam up to the present.